She’d just like to see a slight rise in donations, which have dropped considerably over the past few years.

St. John runs the St. John Feral Cat Fund, a nonprofit that advocates non-lethal feline population control and raises awareness by providing the public with information on feral and stray cat issues, including controlling populations within colonies through Trap-Neuter-Return. Under that management plan, stray and feral cats living outdoors are humanely trapped, evaluated, vaccinated, sterilized and ear tipped for identification by veterinarians.

St. John fields 75 to 100 complaint calls weekly.

Recently, a woman who walks her dog along the wood line in Schuyler Falls contacted St. John. The woman said she spotted two cats that appeared to be abandoned and living outside, with only a small piece of carpet to keep them warm as winter approached.

St. John drove out to the area to assess the situation and discovered the cats were living in a small hole in the ground, surrounded by rocks at the edge of a cliff.

She communicated with friends online and quickly found a home for the cats.

The following day, St. John packed up a couple traps and headed back out to the site where the cats were living. She carefully set the traps up, baiting them with tuna, and waited. One of the cats appeared and circled the trap, sniffed inside and then left.

St. John trapped them the next day.

“Now I just need to get them directly to the vet,” St. John said.

St. John spent roughly $3,500 in expenses related to the St. John Feral Cat Fund. Donations usually cover much of her costs, but they are down significantly.

“We usually raise $2,000 to $3,000 around Christmas, and last year we raised $700 to $800,” St. John said.

Comments

These cat-lovers always like to claim that feral cats run away from humans, and therefore aren't the cause of all the thousands of new rabies cases.

Google for: feral cat attack rabies

Don't be surprised at the numbers of search-hits you get, nor the thousands of horrendous stories that go with them. The numbers of rabies cases or required rabies shots caused by feral cats have been exponentially growing as fast as the cats breed.

These cat-feeders are TRAINING these disease-infested cats to approach humans for food. And what happens when that child (or foolish adult) doesn't have food and reaches down to "pet the cute kitty" or pick it up to try to take it home? The cat lashes out and bites or scratches the hand that has no food for them. That means MANDATORY $1000+ painful rabies shots for the child (or any adult that is just as ignorant and naive). Paid for out of their OWN pockets -- because NOT ONE of these cat-feeders carries one penny of liability insurance for the DEADLY danger they bring to their communities.

These are just the diseases they've been spreading to humans, not counting the ones they spread to all wildlife. THERE ARE NO VACCINES against many of these, and are in-fact listed as bio-terrorism agents. They include: Campylobacter Infection, Cat Scratch Disease, Coxiella burnetti Infection (Q fever), Cryptosporidium Infection, Dipylidium Infection (tapeworm), Hookworm Infection, Leptospira Infection, Giardia, Plague, Rabies, Ringworm, Salmonella Infection, Toxocara Infection, Toxoplasma. [Centers for Disease Control, July 2010] Sarcosporidiosis, Flea-borne Typhus, and Tularemia can now also be added to that list.

The ONLY difference between rats and cats these days is that people who own and love pet-rats aren't severely mentally unbalanced and trying to hoard feral-rat populations on other people's public and private properties -- while also relentlessly petitioning all their lawmakers to do so.

Pet-rat owners, and all other types of pet owners, at least have THEIR sh** together.

If only the same were true of all these mentally-ill TNR cRat-hoarders.

FACT: Trap & Kill failed because cats cannot be trapped faster than they exponentially breed out of control.

FACT: Trap, Neuter, & Release (TNR) is an even bigger abject failure because these man-made ecological disasters cannot be trapped faster than they exponentially breed out of control, and they also continue the cruelly annihilate all native wildlife (from the smallest of prey up to the top predators that are starved to death), and the cats continue to spread many deadly diseases that they carry today -- FOR WHICH THERE ARE NO VACCINES AGAINST THEM. Many of which are even listed as bioterrorism agents. (Such as Tularemia and The Plague -- Yes, people have already died from cat-transmitted plague in the USA. No fleas nor rats even required. The cats themselves carry and transmit the plague all on their own.)

FACT: THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING HUMANE ABOUT TNR. Nearly every last TNR'ed cat dies an inhumane death by road-kill, from cat and animal attacks, environmental poisons, starvation, dehydration, freezing to death, infections, parasites, etc. And if very very lucky humanely shot to death or re-trapped and drowned (the two most common methods employed on all farms and ranches to protect their gestating livestock's offspring and valuable native wildlife dying from cats' Toxoplasmosis parasites). This doesn't begin to count the thousands of defenseless native animals that cats skin alive and disembowel alive for their daily and hourly play-toys. The only difference in destroying cats immediately and humanely instead of trapping, sterilizing, then releasing them to an inhumane death; is that money isn't going into an HSUS or SPCA board-member's pocket, veterinarian's pocket, cat-food company CEO's pocket, or a drug-company CEO's pocket. And that's the ONLY difference!

FACT: Cats are a man-made (through selective breeding) invasive species. And as such, are no less of a man-made environmental disaster than any other caused by man. Cats are even worse than an oil-spill of continent-sized proportions. They not only kill off rare and endangered marine-mammals along all coastlines from run-off carrying cats' Toxoplasma gondii parasites, they destroy the complete food-chain in every ecosystem where cats are found. From smallest of prey gutted and skinned alive for cats' tortured play-toys, up to the top predators that are starved to death from cats destroying their ONLY food sources. (Precisely what cats caused on my own land not long ago.)

FACT: Hunted To Extinction (or in this case, extirpation of all outdoor cats) is the ONLY method that is faster than a species like cats can exponentially out-breed and out-adapt to. Especially a man-made invasive species like these cats that can breed 2-4X's faster than any naturally occurring cat-species.

FACT: In TWELVE_YEARS Alley Cat ALL-LIES of NYC have only reduced feral cats in their own city by 0.08% to 0.024% (as the months go on that percentage becomes more insignificant), allowing more than 99.92% to 99.976% to exponentially breed out of control. Here's how Alley-Cat-ALL-LIES' deceptive math works: If you TNR 4 cats and 3 get flattened by cars this translates to 75% fewer feral-cats everywhere. Alley Cat ALL-LIES can't even reduce cats in their own city, yet they promote it as a worldwide solution. Then even bigger fools fall for it and promote it.

FACT: When researching over 100 of the most "successful" TNR programs worldwide, JUST ONE trapped more than 0.4%. Oregon's 50,000 TNR'ed cats (the highest rate I found) is 4.9% of all ferals in their state. Yet, by applying population growth calculus on the unsterilized 95.1% they will have trapped only 0.35% of all cats in their state sometime this year. Less than 0.4% is a far cry from the required 80%-90% to be the least bit effective.

FACT: Their mythical "vacuum effect" is a 100% LIE. A study done by the Texas A&M University proved that any perceived "vacuum" is just the simple case that CATS ATTRACT CATS. Get rid of them all and there's no cats there to attract more. I proved this myself by shooting and burying hundreds of them on my own land. ZERO cats replaced them FOR 3 YEARS NOW. If you want more cats, keep even one of them around, more will find you. That university study also found that sterilized cats very poorly defend any territory. Non-sterilized cats, being more aggressive, take over the sterilized cats' resources (shelter & food if any). If there is any kind of "vacuum effect" at all, it is that sterilizing cats cause non-sterilized cats to restore the reproductive void.

FACT: During all this investigation I have discovered something that is unfaltering without fail. Something that you can bet your very life on and win every last time. That being -- IF A TNR CAT-HOARDER IS TALKING THEN THEY ARE LYING. 100% guaranteed!